Conventional footwear contains a sole structure comprising a midsole and an outsole, where the midsole is designed to be flexible and provide support to the foot of a user, while the outsole is configured to be durable, resilient, and wear resistant. Without outsoles, the flexible and compressible midsoles would wear down quickly, reducing the usable lifetime of the sole structure. However, because conventional outsoles are designed to be durable and provide protection to the midsole, outsoles are typically hard and inflexible compared to that of the midsole. The durable and inflexible nature of outsoles prevents the sole structure from providing the proper amount of flexure during a gait cycle. Conventional sole structures are further unable to accommodate for varying impacts with support surfaces, regardless of different user gaits, different foot strikes during gaits, and varying topography of the support surface. Thus, the number of people that find a conventional sole structure fail comfortable and supportive is limited.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a sole structure for an article of footwear that provides a more natural amount of flexure, where the flexure of the sole structure mimics the flexure of a user's foot. It would be further desirable to provide a sole structure where the midsole and the outsole work concurrently with one another to provide multi-directional flexure to provide proper support of a foot regardless of foot strike or support surface topography. It would be further desirable to provide a sole structure where the outsole is capable of flexing with the midsole without reducing the durability and protection provided by outsole.